Not that I think this has anything to do with why other dudes were mocking him, but what makes you think they "both were happy," by any reasonable assessment? She was programmed, purchased, and acting on protocol, and the moment the dude wasn't perfectly happy with his piece of property, he "killed" and disposed of her.

How the hell do you get "both happy" from that? There are huge inherent problems and underlying dysfunction with the entire scenario from start to finish.

My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?

Would be a great generalization if these things were genetically engineered, but their not, they are machine parts... we even see inside them.

Technological advance is an inherently iterative process. One does not simply take sand from the beach and produce a Dataprobe. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then our better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. Each minor refinement is a step in the process, and all of the steps must be taken.

Yeah, Alpha Centauri was a pretty fucking awesome game.

/UNIVERSITY FOR LIFE_________________"No, but evil is still being --Is having reason-- Being reasonable! Mousie understands? Is always being reason. Is punishing world for not being... Like in head. Is always reason. World should be different, is reason."
-Ed, from Digger

I'm on break at work, just dropping by to say that Rune's efforts are nothing short of heroic in the face of an unrelenting tide of imbeciles.

I was wondering where all the sane people had got to.

Yes, it's sane to think something that's mechanical and mass produced has a deeper soul to itself.

Also, not against the metaphor, just feeling like he's taking the easiest way out to have the metaphor.

Hmm, create a character that a person can relate to and have these horrible things happen to them, thus making it deeper... NAH Massed produced robots, INTO THE FRIDGE!_________________The Angry Asshat.

I'm on break at work, just dropping by to say that Rune's efforts are nothing short of heroic in the face of an unrelenting tide of imbeciles.

I was wondering where all the sane people had got to.

Yes, it's sane to think something that's mechanical and mass produced has a deeper soul to itself.

Also, not against the metaphor, just feeling like he's taking the easiest way out to have the metaphor.

Hmm, create a character that a person can relate to and have these horrible things happen to them, thus making it deeper... NAH Massed produced robots, INTO THE FRIDGE!

What does this even mean? What on earth do you even mean by this? Are you implying that I am mistaking metaphor or fiction for reality? Are you actually conflating an understanding of metaphor and fiction with an inability to distinguish reality?

Of course you're against the metaphor. Literally every single argument in this thread has been arguing against the metaphor. You are willfully and stubbornly refusing to even consider things from that angle, because you willfully and stubbornly refuse to see the story that it is standing in for. And then you blame your own failing on Tat's supposed laziness. He's clearly put way more thought work into this than you have.

How about you go do something productive, rather than deliberately misunderstanding and tearing down someone else's creation because it's not what you would have written. Go write your own damn stories. If you don't want to read the comic that this actually is, go read something else. Seriously. You're wasting your own time, and everyone else's.

At the very least, take a break. Apparently you regress to being a complete asshat when it sounds like anyone at all is . . . not even actually agreeing with you, but just also disagreeing somehow with the person you're disagreeing with.

Not that I think this has anything to do with why other dudes were mocking him, but what makes you think they "both were happy," by any reasonable assessment? She was programmed, purchased, and acting on protocol, and the moment the dude wasn't perfectly happy with his piece of property, he "killed" and disposed of her.

How the hell do you get "both happy" from that? There are huge inherent problems and underlying dysfunction with the entire scenario from start to finish.

My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?

Would be a great generalization if these things were genetically engineered, but their not, they are machine parts... we even see inside them.

Technological advance is an inherently iterative process. One does not simply take sand from the beach and produce a Dataprobe. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then our better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. Each minor refinement is a step in the process, and all of the steps must be taken.

Yeah, Alpha Centauri was a pretty fucking awesome game.

/UNIVERSITY FOR LIFE

Learn to overcome the crass demands of flesh and bone, for they warp the matrix through which we perceive the world. Extend your awareness outwards, beyond the self of body, to embrace the self of group and the self of humanity. The goals of the group and the greater race are transcendent, and to embrace them is to achieve enlightenment.

Rothide, it may surprise you, but there are plenty of people who can sympathize with robots. People whose identities and behaviors are very proscribed can feel like robots. People, for instance, who are told that their whole lives need to revolve around being obedient.

And while I'm no expert and do not have PTSD, I have been told that some people with PTSD identify with robots - because they can talk and move around and do things, but they're really empty inside. War is one source of PTSD. What is another source?

Additionally, if all the women characters in Sinfest were robots, that might be a problem, depending on how Tat did it. But there are many other women characters with a variety of jobs, interests and aspirations. Sinfest passes the Bechdel test handily as well. Because Tat is already portraying women in a varied manner, it is fine for him to represent a few women as robots and explore their lives._________________::lesser crisis mode::

How do you know she was acting on THAT. Particular. Protocol. Period. when she was with him.

Because, so far, we have been given one, single example of a fembot that has been able to go about her business in the world without that protocol directing her. She is the exception that proves the rule of the default. The "pleasure protocol" is factory default:

Being charged by a lion, or just think you are, requires very different responses to deal with sanely. And if you think you're being charged by lions all the time when you're not, you're insane. You are experiencing fear based on illusion, not reality, and you'd be insane to shape your life and make decisions based on the assumption that it is real.

So, if I keep going to scary horror movies(because I like being scared and am making my decisions based on that like) and are scared by the imaginary things in them, then I'm insane and the emotions I feel aren't "real?" I can't "really" feel fear unless its a real thing I'm afraid of.

Rune wrote:

Love is more than just feels. It is a circumstance that has something to do with something outside of your own brain. It needs a reality to navigate. All else is madness.

So, if people love a God that doesn't exist, it's not really love?

Only loving the correct God is really 'love?' The rest is just fake and insanity?_________________A MtG Webcomic

What an awful post. I'm sure your gay dad is proud of being awkwardly inserted into Internet arguments so you seem more open, while you bash the ACTUALLY open person in the grounds of their religion which they've never forced down anyone's throat.

Anyway got to go call my athiest heterosexual mum and see how my athiest hetero dads garden is doing with all this secular rain._________________Once, at a local NOW meeting where I was the only male among about a dozen women, a feminism trivia contest was held. I came in third.

Because Tat is already portraying women in a varied manner, it is fine for him to represent a few women as robots and explore their lives.

this is what i am trying to work out about the fembot storyline. because if fembots are just robots, i don't really care too much about them. if fembots are a way of looking at women, then i'm interested...but i'm not always sure how they are reflecting women.

like in this case. we have an entity that functions entirely on programming. it behaves in an "affectionate" way towards its owner, because that is how it is programmed, not because it actually feels affectionate. so, similarly, the "supportive mode" (panel 13) is entered not because it feels empathy or a need to be supportive, but because its programming tells it that this is the appropriate thing to do. but it doesn't work - and in this case, i think it doesn't work because the man realizes that what he is getting is just programmed responses, not genuine emotion. and he disassembles it, because it isn't, and can't be, emotionally "real", and so can't fill his need for an emotional response.

now, i can draw a parallel with women who grow up believing that they exist to be partnered with a man, that they need to learn how to please men, that their "function" is to serve men. and they grow up and get married, not because they are in love with a man, but because that is what is expected of them. and they behave as they have been trained to behave, not because it is emotionally satisfying, but because that is what they are supposed to do.

but then if i keep following this line of thought, the woman is going to come up against a day when her man realizes that she doesn't actually love him, she is just going through the motions. and he rejects her.

admittedly, in RealLife he wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) disassemble her...but what would you have him do? he's been duped into spending his life with someone who doesn't genuinely care about him. but it's not her fault she has just done what she has been {trained/programmed} to do - but then what are her options?

our man in sinfest should have understood that he was buying something that would never really love him - but what about real-world men? are they supposed to just assume women don't or can't really love them (but just look at what we say about the men who do believe that!)

if the 'bot really doesn't feel emotions, but only shows programmed reactions, disassembling it because it no longer serves its purpose is no worse (morally) than disassembling an out-of-date computer. it would not be morally wrong to take a hammer to either one. because they are just things, with no real feelings.

the only justification for our fembot's rage is that the disassembled 'bot does feel emotions, and is emotionally hurt by being disassembled...but we have already said the "love" she showed was just programming, which means the only emotion she can truly feel is fear and pain. but that's not the case with humans - at least, not the ones who haven't been severely abused.

i guess i'm not real clear on how tat wants me to react to this. if he is saying "this is woman's lot, you are trained to please men but the only emotion you are able to experience is to fear them"....then as a woman, i'm a bit insulted, because i'm _not_ a robot; i am not unfeeling clay in someone else's hands. if he is saying "inside this thing molded to society's expectations, there is a genuine feeling being that can love as well as fear", then the 'bot could learn to love, her sympathy was genuine, and her destruction is a crime...but what does that say about the relationship, which was based on her being purchased, as an object? she still has no control of who she will love, just the luck of the draw on what the person who buys her is like.

what is tat saying about women, here? or men, for that matter?_________________aka: neverscared!
a flux of vibrant matter